What is up you beautiful people!

Time for another edition of This Week in Bitcoin. LETS GO! But first. Shoutout to The Stacks Foundation for sponsoring this podcast. If you want to get started building on Stacks and push the mission forward of a user-owned internet with Bitcoin as the base layer. Check the links below.  Learn Clarity: https://start.stacks.org/  Learn more about Stacks: https://stacks.co/  Apply for a grant: https://stacks.org/grants

Now lets jump in and get updated on the latest. Starting with Bitcoin mainchain.Catch the podcast on YouTube, Apple, Spotify or Fountain.

Bitcoin

What's poppin in Bitcoin land

• El Salvador has launched a program to purchase bonds back early if holders wish. The traditional credit markets have been hard on El Salvador since it made Bitcoin Legal Tender in 2021. This is viewed by some as a way to dispel myths that it might default on its debt. Who knows? All Bitcoiners are rooting for El Salvador to lead as a shining example of the good Bitcoin can bring a country.

• Spiral releases it's own block explorer with top-tier privacy tools. For those that are unaware. If you use a public block explorer, Your ISP data is visible to many. Copy and pasting your Bitcoin address could reveal sensitive information about you. This new block explorer does none of that.

• Finally for Bitcoin, a Link to Bitcoin Optech Newsletter. The nerdiest and best place to stay up-to-date on updates to Bitcoin core code.

Stacks

Stacks 2.1 and .btc names, oh my!

• CodeCademy launches a course to learn the basics of blockchain, in partnership with Stacks.

• Stacks 2.1 code is being written as we speak and comes closer and closer to a launch date. Good time to update yourself on the changes coming to the Stacks blockchain. TL:DR - Lots of Bitcoin focused goodies. Article

• .BTC names have been found. The decentralized identities powered by the Bitcoin Name System (BNS) on Stacks have been going crazy as of late. It appears people want to be early and secure names that could be valuable in the future. My Take: Decentralized identities will be huge in the future. Stacks .btc names and whatever Block is working on with Web5 are the clear frontrunners for the future of identity.

Lightning

Taro is coming.

• Biggest news in Lightning this week, is the biggest news in Lightning. Period. Taro code is starting to come out and has been released as an alpha version. I'll be doing a breakdown video soon on how Lightning works, and then what Taro brings to the table. It's BIG! Read the official release here.

• LNProxy launches a service to make Lightning payments more private. This looks somewhat cumbersome for the average user, but a step in the right direction for more private payments in the future. Check it out.

• Bitcoin game maker, THNDR Games released a version of Solitaire where you can try you hand at the classic card game and stack some sats while playing. If you haven't checked out any of their games. They have quite a few. I like Bitcoin Bounce.

RSK

The beauty of open protocols is becoming clearer.

• A new Bitcoin startup is building on top of Sovryn's Zero Protocol. The goal is to simplify parts of the process and make it easier to take a zero interest loan out against your RBTC and put it into a popular stablecoin. Check out Fluid here.

• Sovryn has also continued their migration to Graph Protocol. Graph makes it easy to index and access blockchain data to then be pulled into a website for view by the user.

That's it for this week's edition.

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